


if you wanna start a fight you better throw the first punch

by littleghost



Series: the tarot cards say it's not so bad [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, M/M, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-31 22:58:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleghost/pseuds/littleghost
Summary: Alec falls in love with a boy when he is twenty. He should be happy.





	if you wanna start a fight you better throw the first punch

**_the tower_ ** _ : misery, distress, ruin, indigence, adversary, calamity, disgrace, deception.  _ **_reversed:_ ** _ according to one account, the same in a lesser degree, also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny. _

 

Brooklyn is filled with bars that have bad lighting, pool tables stuffed in the back, and a bartender that only cards half as much as he should. Alec turned twenty today, and he celebrates by choking down two fingers of whiskey, his fake I.D. burning a hole in his pocket.

There’s movement beside him, and he looks out of the corner of his eye as a handsome guys leans on the bar to his left. “Hey, handsome,” the guy says, and his smile is sweet, and his eyes are crinkling at the corners.

“Hey,” Alec says, and the man leans close to his ear.

“Wanna get out of here?” He asks, and he drags Alec out of the bar when he nods.

 

The guy’s name is Hodge, and he’s twenty-five, and he’s a kickboxing instructor, and he fucks Alec into the mattress that night, slow and hard. Alec isn’t a virgin, but he hadn’t been with a guy since he was seventeen and fumbled his way into Derek Williams's pants. (Derek’s mom caught them fucking when she arrived home early and chased Alec out of the house, yelling about God and sin.)

Hodge is gentle at first, sucking bruises into Alec’s neck while he stretches him open on three fingers. Alec still cries out when Hodge presses inside him, but as his thrusts get harder and quicker, Alec’s pleasure goes up.

There are bruises on Alec’s hips when he dresses that morning, and Hodge watches him from half-closed eyes as he collects his clothes. “We should do this again,” he says, and curls a hand around Alec’s ass when he gets close to the bed.

Alec laughs and says, “Maybe.”

 

He gets Hodge’s number programmed into his phone, and the only messages they send are sexts and messages to come over. Jace notices that he’s not hanging around their apartment much, but he only winks at Alec when he leaves.

The thing is, they’re fuckbuddies. Alec can do fuck buddies, really, but he wants something more. He wants what Aline and Helen have, the easy relationship where they tell each other everything. He knows that it’s hard to get that sort of openness, with toxic masculinity or whatever Izzy was yelling at, but he can get close to it.

He’s the one that asks Hodge out on a date. They go to a burger joint, eat burgers, and talk about stupid things. Conversation stalls in some areas, but Hodge keeps it going most of the time by talking about his job. Alec likes to listen, so it’s not all that bad.

He still goes home with Hodge and lets Hodge sucks bruises on the tattoo on his shoulder blade. It’s not like he expected any chivalry.

 

Alec likes the rough sex. It’s what he tells himself when Hodge goes in with not enough prep, or when Hodge holds onto his hips so tight, or when Hodge twists his nipples so hard Alec thinks they’ll fall off. The sex is always good, and he thinks the pain turns him on. At any rate, his orgasm are never less overwhelming.

The thing is, Alec has never been able to say no. (And he doesn’t think Hodge will stop.) Izzy calls him a pushover, and it’s been true. He’s let everyone push him around at some point, and it shows in his posture, shoulders with a perpetual slump, arms behind his back like he’s waiting for the inevitable suckerpunch to the gut.

He’s afraid to say no. If he says no, and Hodge stops, he’ll know they’re okay. But if he does and Hodge keeps going, Alec doesn’t know what he would do.

Instead, he bears the purple marks around his wrists and kisses Hodge when he leaves.

 

After two months, Maryse calls of his children home for a family dinner. It’s been awhile since he’s seen Izzy, and she still doesn’t know about Hodge. Jace doesn’t know either, but seems to take Alec’s hesitancy to introduce his boyfriend as Alec being his usual shy self.

The thing is, Alec’s afraid to show everyone his boyfriend. Hodge is four years older than him, and he looks it, and Alec is afraid that his family will think bad (correct) of him.

He shows up with a hickey on the side of his neck, and he doesn’t bother hiding it. Izzy raises her eyebrows when she sees it, but her eyes are filled with mischief, like she wants to say  _ Finally getting some, huh, big bro? _

Alec won’t tell her about the other bruises, like the ones on his arms. Instead, he asks for how he can hide them. He weathers her arched eyebrow and explains, in haltering words, that he wants to look professional at his job. Izzy understands him and his eternal search for perfection, so she shows him how.

 

Sometimes he thinks about ending it. He’s not getting sleep, his grades are suffering, Jace looks at him like he’s a stranger and Alec thinks the person in the mirror is too.

The thing is, somewhere between the rough sex and the semisweet words on dates, Alec’s fallen in love.

It’s more of a death sentence than anything.

 

Hodge finds out Alec is in love with him on a Wednesday, and it’s a day filled with leers and smirks and hard fucking and pain.

“You love me, Alexander,” he says, like it’s a bargaining chip, like it’s something he can hold above Alec’s head and watch him jump for it. (He does, and Alec jumps every time, even when his legs are broken and his pride is dragging in the dirt.)

“Yeah,” Alec manages, but his eyes are squeezed tight because of the blunt pressure at his entrance. Hodge is going in dry (again) and Alec hadn’t been stretched for two days. Hodge pushes, and Alec yells, chokes on a sob and drags the pillow to muffle his face.

 

After that, it seems like Hodge takes every moment to humiliate Alec. He says jump and Alec does, he tells Alec to jump off a bridge and Alec does.

The thing is, Alec wants to stop it. But he’s so damn afraid of what Hodge will do. Jace says that Hodge has Alec whipped, but it’s more like a chain Alec doesn’t know how to break.

 

It comes to a head the moment Jace sees the bruises. They’re not normal sex bruises that can explain by an especially vicious round of rough sex, but bruises that can only be explained by punches.

The thing is, it’s an accident. Alec’s been trying to find the courage to break things off himself but he can’t. The thing is, Alec’s glad Jace found out. It gives him the last bit of courage he needed.

He goes to Hodge’s apartment, doesn’t walk in when Hodge opens the door, and instead tells him that they’re pretty up. It isn’t pretty.

Everything spins and Alec realizes he’s on his back, his chest and back hurting. Hodge’s face appears in his view, and he spits something vitrolic. Alec doesn’t remember the words, but he remembers the way Hodge lifts his foot to stomp on Alec’s face, and the way Alec raises his arm to block him.

Hodge is a kickboxing instructor with years and some weight on Alec, but Alec’s been fighting since he was a kid being bullied in middle school.

The fight is dirty, and Alec’s banged up in more ways than he can count by the time the police arrive. A bystander called the cops, apparently.

He calls Jace at the station. Izzy comes with him, and then Maryse. Alec can’t press charges on assault, and he doesn’t want to press charges on rape or any other thing Hodge has done to him.

He wants to forget it.

They go back to his apartment, and while watching a home improvement show with Jace and Izzy on either side, Alec finally cries.

**Author's Note:**

> prequel to [we are too busy dancing to get knocked off our feet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6445132). 
> 
> find me on [tumblr](https://lesbianroberts.tumblr.com)


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